Bengaluru-Kasaragod-Mangaluru trip in my 2011 Innova with 2.3L km odo

This drive was totally a different one for me. Learned my lesson, made me extra cautious whenever I go out as a pedestrian or a driver or a rider.

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Hello BHPians,

I feel much excited to write this post on this thread, reason you will know as you read through further. Due to work, found myself busy, hence the late post.

City + Highway Mileage:

As mentioned in the previous post of mine, I had left to Kasaragod on 04-Jul-2024 for ~2 weeks. This drive was solely for the house warming ceremony at Mangaluru. Since my family's native is Kasaragod, we did get a new home for ourself at Mangaluru as well. So, as usual, I first reached Kasaragod late night of 04-Jul-2024 after a beautiful drive from Bengaluru.

The coming weekend (Saturday and Sunday), my Mom had planned for some shopping for the new home from D-Mart, Mangaluru. This meant Innova will be our chariot for the to-and-fro journey between Kasaragod-Mangaluru. For those who do not know, Mangaluru is 50 km from Kasaragod. Due to the ongoing construction work of National Highway, I was a little curious whether Innova will return a good mileage or not.

The function was planned for 2 different dates: 10-Jul & 21-Jul. This meant, frequent Kasaragod-Mangaluru trip for sure. Apart from this, I had the usual routine of picking/dropping relatives to/from railway station and airport.

To make things quick, let me summarise few stats below:

• Period: 04-Jul to 22-Jul
• Full Tanks: 4 times
• Total Trip: 1488 km
• Diesel Required: 138.18 L
• Fuel Pumps: 1 time Nayara and 3 times MRPL
• Conditions: City + Highway
• Weather: Rainy almost all the days except on the day of function! 
• Passengers: Difficult to count as I do not recall how much short and long runs had happened. Mostly it was only me doing the rituals running here and there for almost everything.
• Tire Pressure (Nitrogen): 33 PSI (F), 34 PSI (R)
• Tires Currently in Place: Yokohama Earth 1

Refer below screenshot from the Fuelio app, which comes in handy for me to monitor Innova and my R15's mileage as well as cost:

I was happy Innova returned a good 11.07 kmpl mileage!

This was one part of the post. Next part comes with some sarcasm, horror and fun time clicking pics.

Drive Back to Bengaluru:

After all the functions got over, relatives faded to their respective towns and cousins vanished: I had to leave to Bengaluru as my temporary WFH was about to end. My date of travel was on 23-Jul-2024 (Tuesday) from Mangaluru this time. After a long time, I will be witnessing how the Mangaluru-Sakleshpura-Hassan-Nelamangala-Bengaluru route has its shape. But, few days before this date, Shiradi ghat and even the Coorg ghats had taken the blow after heavy rains caused landslides. In fact, most of my cousins and relatives living in Bengaluru had to ditch their plan to attend the function due to travel restriction that was put up. I proceeded with this date for travel after confirming from one of my relative who had left for Bengaluru in their Innova HyCross few days before.

On this travel date, I got up and before even brushing my teeth, I cleaned Innova's windshield with slice of potato. Cut a full potato from middle into equal halves, take one slice and start rubbing over the windshield in circular motion till you get to see starchy texture. Let it be there for some time. Rinse the glass with water and then either use the wiper to remove the water or a dry cloth: both works. This will temporarily ensure the glass does not become foggy all of a sudden during such long drives. In addition, this will ensure the water does not stay sticked to the glass than usual. I did not believe in this method much, but it did work for my 9 hours long drive though. I left Mangaluru at around 10 am. It was raining heavily already. The potato rubbing did work, I could see it working atleast.

Frequent travellers on this route will be familiar with the "beautiful" National Highway between Kalladka and Uppinangady. Pathetic. Horrible. Dirty. Shameless.

Let the pictures speak the rest:

First 5 images are near to Kalladka, the last 2 images are near to Mani.

This is how a National Highway work look like? This is why we are paying the road tax, that tax and this tax? And to those of you do not know, this highway work was started almost 8 years back and still they have not reached anywhere! On the contrast, the Talapady-Kasaragod stretch of national highway construction (from felling trees) started in the year 2021 and if everything goes as planned, this ~42 km stretch highway will be inaugurated in the year 2025. Why does Karnataka have contractors who never like to work for the public? Why is government and NHAI (MoRTH) not bothered about this negligence? God knows. But, I have already planned for this. I will be writing about this poor work to the MoRTH via the CPGRAMS portal soon. Will keep that updated maybe in a separate thread in near future.

* Sigh, I rant a lot when it comes to misusing of tax payers money like this! *

And somewhere in Uppinangady, where the roads are still pathetic, a two wheeler almost escaped from falling due to unbalanced luggage behind him. Dashcam footage for those of you interested.

My reflex somehow was quick and all thanks to the bad roads for keeping me very slow. I had to put the hazard light, get down, lift that rag up and keep it aside! And the poor rider was not even aware his luggage had fallen off!

After an hour or so, it was time to climb the Shiradi ghat after having a quick glass of tea near the foothills. Rain was moderate, roads slippery of course and heavy vehicles love this route 24x7. Wipers on, parking lights on and speed not more than 55 kmph anywhere in this ghat. Better safe than sorry!

I was almost nearing Sakleshpura, when an irresponsible and careless Rajahamsa KSRTC was overtaking another red KSRTC bus that too on a turn which can be a blind spot for anyone going towards Sakleshpura. Since it was slightly uphill, I had my legs lighter on the pedal. I was picking speed slowly and had honked as well to make sure someone is ahead. I heard the red KSRTC honk, but then there is this Rajahamsa KSRTC overtaking on a slight downhill turn. I quickly hit the brakes, Innova skid for few meters before my reflex activated. Instead of the bus, I looked to the left, felt I can take a left and turned the stearing full left in an attempt to avoid either a head on collision or front right quarter collision with the KSRTC. In fraction of seconds, I could see the bus had passed me, Innova is parked half on the road while the front half on the roadside. Thankfully, there was no big gap between the road and the side muddy patch. I could not digest what I just averted! Holy crap. Dashcam footage if you can see.

After taking a deep breathe, thanking god for saving us both from the mishap, I safely parked near the road, got down to feel some fresh air. Even the scenery was good, rain had almost subsided. Felt like why not click some pics, here they are below:

The curves men admire! 

After the ascent, till Sakleshpura, the roads were a little worse but not as worse as those you saw above! Enroute, I saw a truck which had kissed the ground a day before I believe:

And, it was late afternoon, I was craving for Ragi Mudde (Millet Balls). As I was totally clueless about the nearby restaurants, a quick Google search took me here. Ordered veg Ragi Mudde meals, relished each and every gulp of it:

From here, I hardly got any rains. Nor I could see the roads being wet of previous downpour. By around 6 pm, I reached Nelamangala to witness traffic growing as sun faded for the day:

From here, it took another 01:30 hrs for me to reach my home at Seegehalli.

This drive was totally a different one for me. Learned my lesson, made me extra cautious whenever I go out as a pedestrian or a driver or a rider. Stepping out of home these days itself is like risking our life. Still way more to go, lots of things to learn in life as well as when on roads!

Any valuable advice/comments/questions/opinions are appreciated on these two aspects of this post!

Drive safe!

Sud. 

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